Someone
remarked to me the other day that her daughter would make someone a good wife.
Her remark caused me to wonder about the roles of husband and wife in society
nowadays. In the past a husband and a wife had a specific role in marriage. I’m
not sure these specific roles still exist and if they do perhaps they have
become interchangeable. In the past I have defended traditional marriage which
prohibits same sex unions but if these roles no longer exist or are now
interchangeable then perhaps I should reconsider my position.
Let us
assume that marriage has evolved so that the role of husband and wife are to
some degree interchangeable. I am perfectly happy to accept such a change. This
evolution means a woman can play the role of husband and a man the role of
wife. It follows two women can play the roles of husband and wife in a marriage
and the same applies to two men. It might then be argued if the state
recognises marriage between a man and a woman it should also recognise a
marriage between two partners of the same sex and that my defence of
traditional marriage was wrong. Perhaps even my defence was due some
unconscious prejudice on my part
At this
point I must make exactly clear what position I have previously defended. Let
us accept that until recently in western world it has been accepted that
marriage was the union of one man and one woman. I did not defend the states
right to define what marriage means. I accepted that the state has no business
in semantics or else we might end up in a state akin to that in George Orwell’s
1984. Nonetheless I did defend the state’s right to encourage and offer support
to traditional marriages. My argument went as follows. The state supports
children’s education because this helps them flourish and become good citizens.
I then argued by analogy if a marriage helps the children of the marriage
flourish and hence become good citizens that the state should support marriage.
I pointed to evidence that the children of married couples flourish better than
those of unmarried couples, see for instance Married and unmarried family breakdown . I concluded that the state should
support traditional marriage.
However
even if my argument is accepted it doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t recognise
gay marriage. Gay couples don’t want to radically change marriage or destroy
traditional marriage they simply want it to become more inclusive. I accept my
argument above doesn’t automatically preclude this possibility. Provided of
course this inclusion doesn’t harm the relationship between heterosexual
married couples with children. Prima facie it would appear there is no moral
reason why the state should exclude gay couples from marrying. Nonetheless the
above provides no reason why the state should do so. Someone might object that
the state should do so for reasons of equality. If it did so straight couples
will no longer be able to claim moral superiority over gay couples. In reply I
would of course accept that straight couples have no moral superiority over gay
couples. Nonetheless my reason why the state should recognise traditional
marriage had nothing to do with equality or discrimination it was simply concerned
with helping children to flourish. My objector may now question why infertile
heterosexual couples should be able to enter into a traditional marriage and
gay couples shouldn’t. In reply I would argue the state has no moral reason to
promote the marriage of infertile heterosexual couples. It may of course do so
for purely pragmatic reasons simply because it is hard to differentiate between
couples who don’t want or can’t have children and those who do.
In the
light of the above I was perhaps wrong to argue the state should prohibit same
sex marriage. However this is not the same as saying the state should support
same sex marriage. A government might of course do so purely to project itself
as both caring and modern. But these reasons are based purely on the
government’s interests and not on the interests of gay people. In my next
posting I will consider whether the state has other reasons to justify it
supporting gay marriage.
